


The Missing Paladin

by JulieRoonie



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: But I swear it’s a long story, Champion!Lance, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Keith/Lance (Voltron), M/M, Prisoner Lance (Voltron), Prosthetics, Short Chapters, general lance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-10-18 09:08:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 4,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17577968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulieRoonie/pseuds/JulieRoonie
Summary: A mission went wrong, Lance made the greatest sacrifice to risk his life for Pidge and got captured by the Galra. Now he’s the new Champion, with a prosthetic leg and prosthetic hand, and after 2 months, no help is seen and he escapes. The other Paladins are upset that they haven’t found any hint of where he is and find a planet where they believe he is on.Little do they now that the general of the royal guard has a secret about the Blue Paladin.





	1. One

Lance was piloting the Blue Lion through hordes of Galra to get to his friend that he sees as a sister.  
Pidge.

He could see her struggling to fight off the Galra surrounding her. “Lance! What are you doing?!”

“Saving Pidge, that’s what Keith!”

He hopped out of Blue without grabbing his bayard, although it seemed rather stupid at the time, but he could see that Pidge had an injury on her leg so he intended to pick her up and carry her to Blue since they brought the Blue, Yellow, and Red Lions.

‘Blue, I need you to defend us, okay?’

‘Of course my Paladin.’

He started to sprint and dodge anything that blocked him from Pidge. He even managed to pick up a gun that one of the Galra dropped. He used his sharpshooter skills to fire at any Galra that was advancing on Pidge. After what seemed like forever, he reached her.

“Lance… why are you here? You should’ve left without me…”

“Pidge. I will do anything to save you. You’re like my sister after all, up here in space. Now come on, let’s get you to Blue.”

Lance picked her up and started to run back to Blue.

‘Paladin! There is Galra coming onto your tail!’

‘Thanks Blue! Can you come here? I’ll put Pidge in you and hold them off. If I get overtaken, fly away. Get yourself and Pidge to safety. Don’t worry about me.’

‘Paladin… please… don’t do it…’

But she still opened up for him to put the Green Paladin inside the Lion. “Pidge, get to a seat inside of Blue. I am going to hold them off.”

“Lance, no!”

But the mouth closed behind him and started firing at the soldiers advancing on him.

“Lance get out of there!” Shiro shouted to Lance through the comms before a Galra soldier hit his head, knocking off the helmet, thus causing Lance to not respond or hear any of his friends. 

‘Blue, get out of here now!’

‘Paladin!’

‘NOW!’

He sent that mind message to his Lion before another soldier hit him again and knocked Lance out. The aliens cried out in victory and picked up the Blue Paladin. The Blue Lion roared her loudest roar yet and took down the vile Galra but couldn’t take out the ones holding her Paladin without hitting him so she managed to grab his helmet and flew off with Pidge back to the castleship.


	2. Two

Blue arrived in her hanger where the Paladins and Alteans were waiting. “Hunk, can you go in and get Pidge and Lance?” Shiro told the Yellow Paladin. Hunk nodded and Blue’s mouth opened before he made a single step, showing Pidge limping out. 

“Pidge! Are you okay?” Hunk shouted running forward. That’s when Allura noticed that Lance hasn’t walked out of Blue and Pidge was carrying his bayard. 

“Pidge, where’s Lance?”

Before Pidge could answer, Blue moved her paw and put down the helmet and even sent out a message to all of the present Paladins and Alteans.

‘My cub is captured. They wormholed away. Please, find my Paladin.’

The Lion then walked to a corner of the hanger and put up her force field that blocked her off from the whole galaxy. Everyone was frozen with shock, sadness, and anger at the Galra except for Pidge who was crying while being held up by Hunk. Shiro broke the silence, “We should get you to a healing pod Pidge.” She only nodded and they all walked off to the healing pods.

~~~~

Pidge woke up a day later, who got caught by Keith who was nearby and looking very tired. “Where is everyone?”

“In the bridge. Looking for the ship that Lance could be on.”

“Oh.”

They sat in a stressed silence and Pidge said, “Well how about we grab some food and head down to the bridge?”

Keith nodded and they walked down to the kitchens together.

~~~~

“Coran, can you pull up a map of where the Galra fleet could be?”

“Of course, Princess.”

The team watched as the star map got pulled up, reminding Keith that Lance liked to look at them when he was homesick. Keith even joined Lance on those nights when he couldn’t sleep. He could feel the corners of his eyes stinging from tears wanting to fall but he forced them back down.

“So far, there is a few Glara fleets that are in nearby systems, even one nearby Arus!” Coran informed the team.  
Allura stood up from where she was sitting and said, “Well let’s start looking for our friend.”


	3. Three

Lance woke up in a cell a few days after getting kidnapped. Once his senses woke up, he examined his situation since he thought that’s what Shiro would do. He looked at himself and thankfully he was wearing his armor. A little beat up but it was better than nothing. There was only him in the cell so no comforts of any kind. He managed to locate the door and after he noticed it, someone opened it. Haggar.

“Hello my dear Paladin.”

“Shut up! Don’t come near me!”

He backed himself into a corner with his fists ready to throw some punches. Haggar stopped in front of him an arm lengths away. Under her hood she gave him a look but he couldn’t see it.

“Paladin, since you remind me so much of my previous champion, I will give you a choice. You can either give me answers of your fellow Paladins or, you become my new champion. Got it?”

Lance nodded slowly. He wasn’t sure on where to go with this. But he couldn't betray his friends so he decided to go with the second option.

“Fine. I’ll be your new champion.”

~~~~

Today was his 10th time walking out into the arena. They made him wear his Paladin armor to basically say that his friends abandoned him. He was starting to believe it. Time may be hard to tell without anything telling you what the time is here, but he knew it has been a long time. He grabbed the weapon they left him and he could hear them cheering the word, “Champion”. The only thing he was known for here. Along that he’s the Blue Paladin of Voltron. Lance was always reminded of Shiro when he was referred to as “Champion” and hesitates everytime it’s mentioned and that was his mistake on his first fight in the arena, and cost him his leg, which is now replaced by a prosthetic. 

He started to make a escape plan since it seemed like he was the only hope that he had. He knew where the escape pods were and where the engine room is. Along with the room that kept the explosives inside. He decided since he was able to walk around the area of the ship that had the explosives and engines nearby freely, he could get a bomb with a detonator, set it the engine room, excuse himself to the escape pod area, saying Haggar or Sendak needed him there or something, quickly get into a escape pod, and set off the bomb. Simple. 

 

Hopefully.


	4. Four

On his 4th week stuck in the Galra’s clutches, he decided to put his plan into action. He exited his room (a small, simple, and drab room, but it’s considered luxury for Haggar’s champions) and made his way to the explosives. When he got there, he checked to make sure that no one else was there. He put his hand, which was a robotic one now like Shiro’s (but didn’t extend to his elbow, it stopped at the wrist), on the scanner, hoping it would open. Luckily, it did. He walked in and locked the door behind him. He had to make this visit quick otherwise something bad might happen. He managed to find the perfect bomb with detonator and snuck out of the room with it in his hand.

Next stop was the engine room. Really the only way to get into the room without anyone noticing was through the vents. Which was fine by Lance, giving him a smaller chance of being discovered. He found the vent that he needed and crawled through it.

After a good 10 minutes, he arrived. He snuck around the technology that was kept there, looking for the main engine. He located it and hid the bomb near it. After making sure that it was securely hidden, he left the room out the way he came in.

~~~~

He waited an hour or two before heading down to the escape pods.

“Champion. Where are you going?”

Finally Lance was able to use his excuse. Weirdly enough, he was wanting someone to ask him that.

“I am heading to the private training deck that is reserved for me. I just took a wrong turn since I woke up awhile ago.”

The guard grunted in response, obviously buying it. 

‘I thought they would be smarter than this. Well time to get into the vents again.’

Indeed he did just that, a shorter distance than before. His luck managed to help him once again because he got out of the vents without a sound and the pods seemed ready to go. He ran sneakily past the guards, and into a escape pod and pulled out the detonator. 

“Well, here it goes.” he whispered to himself. 

He pushed the button.


	5. Five

“Shiro, it has been a month since Lance got captured! We took down almost every fleet that was near us a month ago! The only one that’s left is the one near Arus!” Keith shouted, nervous since it felt like it has been far too long since he heard a joke about his mullet (yes this once he will admit that the jokes that Lance makes about his hair were greatly missed).

“Don’t worry Keith. We’ll find him soon.” the Black Paladin said, hoping that helped his teammate in someway.

“Paladins! Come down to the bridge this instant! We have urgent news!”

The two ran down to the bridge and saw that Pidge was already there. They moved near her when Hunk arrived. He must have been stress cooking since he did have some kind of food goo on his armor. Allura saw them and said, “Paladins, these news that I am about to give you may help with our search for Lance.” They all perked up.

“What is it Allura? How do you know?” Hunk asked.

“Well as you know we were heading to that fleet near Arus. Well we were able to see the ship then this happened. Coran, could you pull up the video?”

“Of course.”

The screen behind the Alteans showed a Glara ship when Shiro said, “Wait. That is not a fleet. That is a ship similar to the one I was kept on when I was the champion…”

With that note, they thought that Lance was surely on that ship. “Please continue Coran.”

The advisor continued the recording. It seemed perfectly normal until you could hear the small sound of explosions. Then the ship exploded.

The Paladins felt their hopes going down. I mean, who could survive that?

Keith decided to step in. “Allura. You said this would help us find Lance. This doesn’t seem like this would help besides the fact that we could cross off another ship that didn’t have him.”

Allura looked at Keith and replied, “How could I have forgotten the detail that I wanted to show you? Coran, please zoom in and pause it at the specific part.”

“Right away.”

He zoomed in and restarted the recording. They heard the explosions again and this time, it was different. The video stopped and they could see a lone escape pode flying out of the ship. They couldn’t see who was in the pod but they were certain that  
Lance was in there.


	6. Six

Lance flew the pod to the nearest planet, not knowing that the castleship was behind him. 

“Where can I go?”

He saw that one of the nearest planets was Arus so he decided to land there. But something made him stop. They abandoned him so why would he want to return there? He just couldn’t face them again without feeling betrayed. He pulled up a map of what was near him and saw a nearby planet called Kalof that was fortunately habited and seemed like a fairly nice place to live. He made his decision to land there.

~~~~

Back at the castleship, the team was trying to find the pod that escaped the ship. They tried contacting it but no one answered. It was already flying away when they decided to send out the Lions to try and take a look for the pod. It couldn’t have gone far by that time though.

“If it is Lance, we could check Arus first.” Coran said, throwing out an idea for the Paladins. 

“How about this. The castleship, along with the Yellow Lion, goes to Arus. The Black Lion checks where the ship exploded, just in case. That leaves the Green and Red Lions to look through the rest of this area.” Allura said. They all nodded and went on their way.

As Keith was boarding his lion, he whispered, “I’m coming for you Lance.”

~~~~

“No, no, no, no, no!”

Lance was crash landing since the pod didn’t come out of the explosion in the best shape. At this point, he could see a city out in the distance, but he wasn’t going to land in it luckily. 

“Pull up pull up!”

He tried to make landing gear come out, slow down, anything that wouldn’t result with him dead. He barely managed to turn the pod so that it wouldn’t land face first. Lance started to unbuckle himself from the seat to get as far away from the impact point, but the pod was falling too fast.

The pod hit the ground, knocking the Paladin unconscious.


	7. Seven

A few vargas later, they regrouped on Arus except for Keith and Pidge. They still had some parts to cover and decided to check out the planets later with the team. 

“Alight. I asked the Arusians if they have seen either a Galra pod or Lance. They said that the only thing related to the Galra was that explosion from earlier. So unfortunately, Lance isn’t here.” Allura told them. Shiro was quickly forming a plan in his head.

“We should contact Pidge and Keith then report what we found out. After that, we go join them at a specific planet. But even though we can’t form Voltron right now, we can’t neglect the rest of the universe’s needs. Even if we are near the planet he his on, we should answer distress signals. I know that some of us may not like this, even I don’t like it, but it needs to be done.”

The others agreed and put on a video feed to the Red and Green Lion and told them what they found and their plan. Keith wasn’t entirely happy with the fact that they might have to abandon their search for Lance at times when necessary. But he reluctantly agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eeeegggggghhhh I hate that these chapters are short, but I’ll try and make them longer.


	8. Eight

Lance woke up in a type of hospital room. No one else was in the beds next to him but there is a nurse or doctor on the farther end of the room.

“Excuse me? Uh… can you tell me where I am, who you are, and what happened to me?”

She looked at him and she walked closer, but not in a creepy or villainous way, carrying some bandages and medicine. She looked humanoid but with a pale purple skin and her red eyes had cat pupils, her hair was a deep ocean blue and pulled up in a ponytail.

“I am Lateina. And you’re on planet Kalof, a neighboring planet of Arus. What happened to you is pretty surprising since you survived. You crash landed in a pod and your robotic hand broke and one of your legs needs to be surgically removed unfortunately.”  
Lance looked at her and felt tears welling up in his eyes. He then removed the covering on the bed and looked at his prosthetic leg. It was fine so he was confused. But when he moved, pain flared up him other leg and when he looked at it, he gagged. It was cleaned of blood but that just revealed the injury more. It was twisted and his foot looked like it was crushed. Probably from a part of the pod.   
“We can get our engineers to make you a new hand and leg, and replace the other one. Although we need to find a way to scan your body to be able to connect the limbs to your body correctly.”

He nodded and thought of his teammates as the Kalofian changed his bandages.

“We saw your armor earlier. Are you really a Paladin of Voltron?”

Lance looked at her and slowly nodded. 

“I was. I don’t think I am anymore.”

eyes showed that she was confused so Lance told her his full story. From when they left Earth, to when he saved Pidge and got captured, to when he escaped the Galra ship, to when he crash landed. The alien listened to his story and tears started to fall from her eyes when he finished. 

“It’s been so long since I saw them last. I don’t think that they’re looking for me anymore and think that I am dead. I was going to head to Arus but that planet reminds me of my team and I don’t want to see them again. It just... hurts.”

They sat in silence for a bit and Lateina broke the silence.

“I can make a offer to our king and queen for you to stay and live among the civilians. Maybe your previous experience as a Paladin of Voltron can help us. But for now, you should rest. When you wake, I’ll have something for you to eat.”

Lance nodded and settled into the cot that was luxury compared to the previous prisoner bed then fell into a peaceful slumber.

~~~~

A few quintants later, Lance found himself standing in front of two thrones made of stone with jewels decorating them. In those thrones were the king and queen of Kalof. Lance was slightly afraid that they might either kill him, contact the Galra, or contact Voltron. None of those sounded good in his opinion. He saw the king stand and Lance gave the king his full attention.

“I see that you have some kind of worry in you. Don’t be. Even if Voltron hasn’t visited us for an alliance yet, we would gladly be allies with them. That is getting off topic since we are here because of you. What should we call you?”

Lance stood there for a few ticks before answering.

“My name is Lance McClain but can I be called Azul if I have to live here?”   
“Of course. How are your new limbs? I hope that the scans worked and we connected them properly.”

“They work great. Almost as if they’re not actually prosthetics.”

He wasn’t lying. In a way, the tech of the Kalofians were similar to Altean technology. Some electric blue lights where the joints are on the white body of the robotic limbs. The king smiled.

“Amazing! I am pleased by the work of our engineers. My name is King Marcoro. This is my wife, Queen Marieterria. We are hoping that you will take our offer of letting you be a resident of, not only a citizen of Kalof, but a resident of the castle.”

Lance stood there shocked. He didn’t think that the king and queen would let him live there in the castle. But he decided to accept.

“I will gladly accept your offer. But… do I need to do anything for you to stay?”

The queen, Marieterria, stood up. 

“No you do not need to do anything for us, Azul. But know that there is creatures that attack the kingdom every few days. We wanted to tell you that this kingdom is the last civilization of this planet. We manage to hold off the creatures but we still lose many of our people. So know that you can make the choice to fight or hide when they attack.”

Lance nodded. He gave it some thought and knew what he decide to do.

“I will fight. If this is going to be my new home, I want to defend it. I just need to have some training to get used to the prosthetics.”

The king and queen looked at each other in surprise. They did know that he was a Paladin of Voltron, but they didn’t know that he wanted to still fight even though he just got healed, and possibly be facing the monsters alone. They looked like they were having a silent conversation in their minds (who knows, they might be since they’re aliens). They looked back at the Cuban and nodded.

“Very well. Your assistant, Lateina, will show you your room. Hope you enjoy your new home.” Queen Marieterria said. Lance thanked them and exited the throne room with Lateina to start his new life.


	9. Nine

It has been two movements since they started searching for Lance without success. They only had two planets left to search. A lava planet that wasn’t very suitable for life and a planet called Kalof. At this point, although the team didn’t know it, Lance had made himself general of the Kalofian army since he single handedly took down one of the beasts on the planet. Shiro made the decision to check on the planet when they could, which is three quintents away.

Hunk was stress cooking for the fifth time that week and kept on talking to empty air since Lance was usually there to listen to him and help Hunk take a break from cooking. Shiro tried to calm down the cooking but couldn’t so he decided to store the food.

Pidge was on her laptop almost for a few days straight. The only way she fell asleep was if she collapsed of pure exhaustion. Shiro tried to pull her away from her laptop but failed. Instead he brought her food since she didn’t feed herself either.  
Shiro was trying to juggle the responsibilities of himself, Pidge, and Hunk. He knew that he can’t take Lance’s place as a part of the Garrison trio. But the leader of Voltron tried his best.

Allura was alright. Still distressed with Lance’s disappearance, but she manages to keep a level head for the team.  
Coran is still trying to really accept that Lance isn’t living in the castle. He just can’t lose his space children and the Blue Paladin is his favorite one of the humans.

But in all honesty, Keith was the worst one of the whole team. He has had a crush on the Cuban ever since their bonding moment. Before Lance was captured, Keith was planning of confessing to him after working up the courage for it but the Galra had to ruin it. By taking away the heart of Voltron, the boy who stole Keith’s heart.


	10. Ten

Lance, who goes by General Azul to the Kalofians, walked down the main road of the town when he noticed something odd in the sky. As he saw it descend, he ran back to the castle to warn the king and queen.

“King Marcoro! Queen Marieterria! There is an odd white object descending into the atmosphere. What should we do?”

The royal couple looked at each other and they looked back at their friend (yes he has become a good companion of the two). 

“Get your squadron ready. Get ready and meet me and Marieterria at the front gate in ten doboshes.”

Azul bowed and ran off. He managed to get his squadron, which is the king’s guard, and met King Marcoro and Queen Marieterria at the front gates. Then they started to walk towards the now landed white object.

 

~~~~

 

When they got closer, Azul recognized it as the Castle of Lions. A small part of him started to panic since he was hoping they wouldn’t find him here. But luckily for him, he has told the king and queen of his situation so he has some kind of way to cover his face, so he put it on. Lateina, who is his second in command, looked at him with a knowing look. 

A pod came down from the castle like when the team met Nyma, Rolo, and Beezer came down to meet the group. A tick later, the doors opened to show the Paladins with Allura by their side. Almost simultaneously, the two groups walked toward each other. When they stopped, they were only a few feet from one another. The Paladins bowed to Marcoro and Marieterria and in turn, Azul and the rest of the king’s guard bowed to Allura.

“Greetings. I am Princess Allura and these are my Paladins. We were wondering if we could discuss an alliance and another matter with you.”

Marcoro nodded his head in understanding. “My wife and I will be pleased to speak with you. But our general, Azul, must be there in case of a misunderstanding and help us discuss. Your Black Paladin will be there as well, correct?”

Allura nodded. Then the groups made their way to the castle.


	11. Eleven

They arrived at the castle in a short amount of time and as they got there, Azul sent off the king’s guards off to do something else in the castle, except Lateina who remained outside of the room where they were holding the meeting.

Allura looked at Hunk, Pidge, and Keith and told them, “Could at least one of you come in with Shiro and me, and the other two remain here with the guard?” At her statement, it looked like the three were going to break out in a fight over it, but stopped thanks to a stern look from Shiro. 

“I’ll stay here and hopefully decode something.” Pidge told the others, since she somehow brought her laptop down to the planet with her.

“I’ll stay with Pidge and help her out.” Hunk added.

Keith looked at them in surprise. He knew that part of their mission was to find Lance and his two best friends weren’t going to question the king and queen on where the Blue Paladin was, if he was on the planet at all. They all knew that Keith really wanted to find Lance as well. In fact, he almost shouted at a leader of a previous planet if they know where Lance is. 

“I guess Keith will go with us.” Shiro said. Kalofian royalty and their general nodded. As they were walking into the room, Shiro whispered in Keith’s ear, “No shouting at anyone this time please.” The Red Paladin nodded and followed after the rest.

Lance felt quite strange seeing his… friends interact with each other without him pulling some jokes, bickering with Keith, flirting with the Princess, or even pulling a one liner on Queen Marieterria (this idea now disgusts him since she’s become like a mother figure to him and she is married). As they were walking into the room he started to wish that the makers of him helmet could make a cooler one since it was starting to get hot inside of it but of course, he didn’t want to reveal himself to the team.

They all took a seat at the table with Marcoro and Marieterria sitting side by side at the head of the table and Lance to their right. The Paladins and Princess stood awkwardly for a second before Allura sat on their left and Shiro beside her, leaving Keith standing there awkwardly. He knew he should sit next to Shiro but something in his gut told him to sit next to the general, so he did. Shiro looked at him with one of his eyebrows raised and the general glanced at him. 

Marcoro then broke the slightly awkward silence. “How about we get this meeting done and over with so that your companions don’t wait long out there?”


End file.
